Just weeks after Lori Loughlin’s brief stint behind bars for her involvement in Operation Varsity Blues came to an end, the Fuller House actress’ husband is also making moves to alleviate his own prison sentence. And, true to the privilege and audacity the couple has shown throughout this entire scandal, the latest development in the case is quite wild.
Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli were prosecuted by the federal government after being named in a massive university admissions scandal; they and several other wealthy parents (including Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman) conspired with admissions expert William Singer to fraudulently help their kids gain admission to prestigious universities. As part of the scam, Singer’s college-prep business The Key Photoshopped students' faces onto athletes' bodies, hired people to proctor standardised tests for students, and funnelled money from parents in the form of "donations."
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Once the news of the scandal broke, Giannulli and Loughlin were each charged with conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and had to pay a total of $400,000 (£295,000) in fines. Loughlin was sentenced to a short two months in prison, and in later December, she was released early to return to her family home.
Fashion designer Giannulli was sentenced to five months behind bars, set to be released in April of this year. However, his legal team is reportedly requesting that some terms of his sentence be altered in a major way.
The couple was sent to prison at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and Giannulli was forced to quarantine when he reached the California facility. His lawyers claim that he wasn’t able to leave quarantine even after several negative COVID-19 tests; instead, he was kept in solitary confinement for almost two months. Because of that forced isolation, which Giannulli’s counsel reports had a “significant [impact] on his mental, physical, and emotional well-being," they are now petitioning the judge to allow the designer to serve out the rest of his sentence at home. As in literally going home.
If the request sounds ridiculous, it’s because it absolutely is. Giannulli’s sentence of just five months behind bars after committing such a blatant act of fraud was already extremely light to begin with — the charges brought against him and his wife could’ve seen them facing millions of dollars worth of fines and up to 50 years behind bars. And now he's trying to dictate the terms of his sentence...the privilege is jumping out.
When Giannulli and Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade appeared on an episode of The Red Table Talk, she insisted that her parents fully understood the error of their ways and wanted to take responsibility for their actions. I don't know if I believed her then, and given this recent turn of events, her words seem pretty empty now. Does this look like the behavior of a person who wants to be held accountable?